Business I executive tips
Get It Done In Six Weeks
S
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A36
June 12 • 2008
ix weeks and counting! Over
the past year, I have shared
a number of methods to use
for analyzing the business cycle.
This has included the process to
carefully look at where your company
or your depart-
ment may
stand: Infancy,
Adolescence,
Go-Go, Prime,
Premature
Aging, etc.
(Oct. 11, 2007,
page 36). Then
we discussed
F. Kevin Browett how to look
Columnist
at the skill set
you and others
have, with the knowledge that a leader
needs to have all four skills, including:
Producer, Administrator, Integrator
and Entrepreneur (Dec. 13, 2007,
A41). We also had a discussion on the
key to holding an effective meeting
and this led to the thinking that one
needs CAPI (Sept. 13, 2007, page 63),
meaning the Coalescence of Authority,
Power and Influence.
Now in the real world, what does it
mean to actually get things done? This is
the six-week rule. No action or follow-up
to action should be allowed to go more
then six weeks. This means you must
establish a set goal, to get a final decision
and action plan in six weeks.
You set that goal; you assign the
right team (CAPI), then you empower
them to take action in teams with
ownership to deliver a final decision
and action plan with deadlines within
six weeks. This forces people to act
and know that by the end of a set peri-
od of time, they not only must have a
recommendation, they also must have
a detailed timeline and action plan to
execute and implement the plan.
The six-week plan forces a focus,
but also requires a trust factor and a
Hillel Extends
Bittker Honor
Hillel of Metro Detroit (HMD), the
Foundation for
Jewish Campus
Life, has named
Stephanie Adas to
receive the 2008
David Bittker
Student Leadership
Award.
Stephanie Adas
Adas, who recently
discipline; you must have those you
trust take a project and focus in and
force the meetings and follow up. You
also must have the personal discipline
to set a date and then drive toward
that deadline making it clear that you
will expect a final plan and all details
on that date and you will be there to
hear it and see it.
It is not the issue, but rather the
ownership and deadlines that count
in the end. Ideas, meetings and open
discussions are all part of any good
planning. In the end what matters is
execution and implementing the
plan to get the results.
The real point is that you could meet
for 12 months and try to get every
detail; but if you force a focus and a
discipline in six weeks with the right
people, CAPI, most of the time, you
get 90 percent right and you are doing
it. Once doing it, the tweaks, changes
and enhancements fall out in a natural
way that makes the execution close to
98 percent fast versus meeting over
and over trying to get the details down
right without getting it out and in the
real world for implementing.
Having great meetings to discuss
why you need to have great service
versus implementing the plan to give
great service and having the customer
then tell you how to make it better is
the right action; the customer will
most likely never attend your meet-
ing. Today, you have six weeks. Make a
change! The clock is ticking.
Source: "Corporate Lifecycles: How And
Why Corporations Grow And Die And
What to Do About it," by Chaka Adizes
(Prentice Hall, 1988).
F Kevin Browett is COO of Jewish
Renaissance Media, parent company of the
Detroit Jewish News. He is a former vice
president of Kmart Corp. and a past small-
business founder and officer.
graduated from the Wayne State
University Law School in Detroit,
was president of WSU's Jewish Law
Students Association and actively
spearheaded an HMD initiative that
will help Jewish law school graduates
find local jobs.
Adas is a member of the HMD
Board of Governors. She was selected
for the honor based on leadership,
dedication and sense of responsibil-
ity.